New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- Today, the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, Safari Club International, and Sportsmen's Alliance Foundation filed a legal challenge to New Jersey's ill-advised closure of state lands to the upcoming black bear hunt.

“NJOA is proud to continue the fight for sound wildlife management,” said Ed Markowski, President of the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance. “New Jersey sportsmen only want access to the lands they pay for and maintain and for wildlife policy to be free from the special interest agendas of anti-hunting extremists and career politicians who are long on rhetoric and short on science.”

“New Jersey has held successful and scientifically-sound black bear hunts since 2010, but this year the new democrat governor Phil Murphy promised to stop the hunt regardless of what the state's own wildlife professionals decide,” said SCI President Paul Babaz. “SCI and its partners have battled to protect New Jersey's bear hunt since 2004 and we will continue to support science-based management over emotion-driven decisions.”

“It's a sad day when a governor willingly puts his own constituents at risk just to fulfill a campaign promise to a vocal minority,” said Evan Heusinkveld, president and CEO of the Sportsmen's Alliance. “This is political pandering at its finest. Governor Murphy knows that the wildlife experts in his own agencies use the best available science and practices when evaluating wildlife populations and hunting regulations. It is a slap in the face to the state's biologists and wildlife managers who have spent their entire careers working on these issues, only to have a politician tell them ‘I know better.'”

The lawsuit's claims include:

that the State violated New Jersey law by banning black bear hunting on state-managed lands without scientific or policy